Wicked Haunts (An Ivy Morgan Mystery Book 12)

by Lily Harper Hart

  Jack furrowed his brow. “What fancy life? Brad is an insurance salesman. I think that means he does okay when it comes to money – especially by Shadow Lake standards – but he’s hardly going to be buying million-dollar homes and Lamborghinis.”

  “That’s exactly what I told Nikki. She didn’t believe me, said he had money hidden away that he couldn’t access while Janice was alive. Supposedly he hid it while they were married and couldn’t touch it during the divorce or she would have a claim to it, but Nikki was convinced there was money hidden out there.”

  Brian tilted his head to the side, considering. “Do you know where this money came from?”

  “No. Just that Brad would eventually be able to get his hands on it. Nikki wasn’t specific.”

  “But … how?”

  “If I knew that, I would’ve stolen it from him a long time ago. Oh, don’t look at me that way. I have no problem stealing from that loser. After what he did to his wife and kid, I have absolutely no sympathy where he’s concerned.”

  “Where do you think he’s hiding this supposed money he has?”

  Hank held his hands palms out and shrugged. “I don’t know. If it was me, I would hide it in the woods. I mean … it’s not as if we don’t have a bunch of woods surrounding this hole-in-the-wall town.”

  Jack and Brian exchanged another look. The woods. Like the woods surrounding the shack, one of the only landmarks in the area.

  “Thanks for your time,” Brian said as he slowly got to his feet. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch again.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Hank waved them off. “By the way, if you see Nikki, tell her there’s no room at my inn unless she pays for room and board. I’m not kidding.”

  Jack let loose an exaggerated sigh. “You’re all heart, man.”

  “I know. That’s my biggest weakness. I’m too much of a softie.”

  IVY DIDN’T EXPECT JACK HOME for another hour, maybe two, so she decided to spend some time reading in her small library. Jack had basically ceded the room to her because he knew it was her private space and she needed a private spot to decompress at times. Only Ivy and her black cat Nicodemus were regular visitors.

  For his part, Nicodemus seemed surprised to have his mistress home so early and he eagerly curled up with her on the couch. She picked a book she’d been dying to read, reclined on the small couch … and then stared into space. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get the idea of Phoebe being lost in the woods out of her head.

  She closed the book, stroked Nicodemus’s soft fur, and then restlessly got to her feet to pace. The cat made a disgusted sound as his tail began lashing back and forth.

  “I get that you’re upset,” Ivy said to him. “I’m sorry I haven’t been paying much attention to you the past few days. It’s just … this is a big deal. There’s a lot going on.”

  For years, ever since she rescued him as a kitten from a dumpster, Nicodemus was one of the few creatures Ivy felt comfortable talking to. She didn’t feel the least bit ridiculous holding a conversation with him now.

  “It just makes no sense. I mean … why would Phoebe be hiding in the woods? Why wouldn’t she seek help if she was injured? If she made it as far as the greenhouse, why not come here? Everyone in town knows Jack lives here now. He could’ve helped her.”

  Nicodemus kept staring, his tail a twitchy beast with a mind of its own.

  “Plus, Phoebe must know what happened to her mother,” she continued, dragging a restless hand through her long hair. “Why would she stay hidden after what happened to her mother? Unless … I guess she really may be that frightened. If she is, that means she needs help.”

  Ivy strode out of the library, leaving Nicodemus to pout in her wake. When she returned to the living room, she glanced toward the door and internally debated her options. If she left, Jack would be furious. They would fight, maybe even to the point where one of them said something awful.

  If she didn’t leave to check the greenhouse again, she would drive herself mad.

  Her mind was already made up when she walked to the closet by the front door. She had to go. That didn’t mean she had to be stupid about it. She dug through the closet, found the pepper spray Jack gifted her months before, and pocketed it. She then found her keys and stopped in the kitchen long enough to write Jack a note.

  She explained she knew he would be angry, that she knew it probably wasn’t a smart move, but something inside was pushing her to go back to the greenhouse. She told him she loved him and hoped he wouldn’t be too angry because there were blueberry pancakes in his future if he only yelled for a few minutes. Then she signed her name.

  She gathered her cell phone and shoved it into her other pocket before slipping out of the house. It was still light outside, she told herself. She would be perfectly fine.

  In her heart, she believed that. Her head told her this was a bad idea … and yet she went all the same. Something really was calling to her, and she couldn’t turn her back. Not this time.

  Eighteen

  Ivy kept up a brisk pace as she walked to the nursery, making sure to keep her eyes peeled for signs of movement. The walk didn’t take long — she was used to the terrain and could’ve done it in her sleep — but she was on edge when she arrived.

  Instead of immediately pointing herself toward the greenhouse, she took up position in the shade of the trees and scanned the property for a long beat. She had just about convinced herself that it was empty when she saw a shadow moving on the other side of the greenhouse window. She couldn’t make out the individual that went with the shadow, but Ivy’s desire to help Phoebe — and she was convinced that was who she would find — overtook her common sense and she strode in that direction and threw open the door.

  There, in the middle of the building, Phoebe stood. Her dark hair was disheveled, her face grimy, and she looked like a deer caught in headlights as she blinked several times in rapid succession.

  “Phoebe!” Ivy moved toward her. “I knew it was you. What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

  Phoebe seemed surprised by the questions. “Ms. Morgan, I ... um ... I’m sorry I broke in here but I needed a place to hide. I had to think and this was the only place around. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Ivy waved off the apology and ran her eyes over Phoebe’s filthy clothes. “Are you hurt? We saw the blood. Where is it coming from?”

  Phoebe held up her left hand, which had a rag wrapped around it. Ivy recognized the rag from the nursery. Her father kept it behind the counter. “It’s cut. I think it’s getting infected.”

  “Let me see.” Ivy was gentle as she removed the rag, cringing when she saw the ragged wound on the palm of Phoebe’s hand. “How did this happen?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Phoebe’s eyes flashed with something Ivy couldn’t quite identify. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.” Ivy pressed her lips together as she stared at the wound. “We need to call for an ambulance.”

  “No!” Phoebe reached out with her good hand and grabbed Ivy’s arm, desperation positively rolling off her in waves. “You can’t. I’ll end up dead if you do that. You have no idea what’s going on.”

  “I would like to hear what’s going on.”

  “I ... .” Phoebe broke off and chewed her bottom lip.

  “You think about it,” Ivy prodded, getting to her feet. “I have a first aid kit in the cabinet over there. I’m not leaving you, or calling anyone. I just need to get the peroxide and some bandages. I can’t fix that wound, but I can clean it and make you more comfortable.”

  Phoebe remained leery as she watched Ivy shuffle to the cabinet. “I thought I looked in there.”

  “You probably didn’t realize what you were looking at.” Ivy pulled out a box that looked nothing like a first aid kit. “This is where I keep the stuff.”

  “I figured that was just plant stuff, like food or something.”

  “No.” Ivy returned with
the box and gestured for Phoebe to sit on the closest bench. “Get comfortable. We need to talk and come up with a plan. First, though, I need to know what happened. I ... do you know about your mother?”

  “That she was killed? Yeah.” Phoebe’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded. “I walked in on it happening.”

  Ivy felt sick to her stomach. “I’m sorry. That must have been terrible.”

  “It felt like a dream, one of those nightmares that you know is a nightmare and yet still can’t escape from it.” Phoebe swiped the back of her hand over her forehead as Ivy drew out a bottle of peroxide. “I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. You know, I thought I was imagining it ... or there had to be a reason for what was happening.

  “I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous in hindsight, but I was stuck in slow motion,” she continued. “I didn’t understand ... and then it was too late.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My father.”

  Part of Ivy expected that. It wasn’t that it made sense as much as Brad was clearly having emotional issues. The realization that her initial suspicions were right did little to make her feel better. “Do you know why?”

  “I didn’t even know though they were speaking again,” Phoebe admitted, sniffling. “As far as I knew, they hadn’t spoken since they got divorced. Things were so bad when that went down that they couldn’t even be in the same room for mediation together.

  “That was forced on them, by the way,” she continued. “Neither one of them wanted to deal with it. Instead, they wanted to go to court and rip each other to shreds. Even my mother, who was always the most even-tempered woman in the world, only cared about hurting my father.”

  Ivy was gentle as she dabbed peroxide against Phoebe’s wound. “I know it’s not a proper excuse, but I would imagine that your mother was extremely hurt by what happened. She didn’t see it coming and, when you’re hurt, your initial response is to lash out. She probably didn’t even realize what she was doing.”

  “Maybe,” Phoebe conceded. “I tried talking to her, though. I was mad at him, too. I don’t want you to think that I agreed with what he did, but she was so angry that she forced me to choose between them. She said I could either see him or her, but not both.”

  Ivy wrinkled her forehead. That didn’t sound like the Janice she knew. Of course, people change when they’re going through an emotional ordeal. “I’m sorry about that. I can’t believe she said that to you.”

  “She was serious, too. Since she was the one hurt — and there was no doubt my father did wrong — I agreed with her. It turns out she knew what she was talking about when she said he was a soulless monster.”

  Sympathy welled as Ivy worked hard to clean the angry wound. “Tell me what happened the day your mother died.”

  “I went for a run. I had the night shift at the resort and I like to keep in shape so I’ve taken up running. I can only make it two miles right now.”

  “That’s two miles more than I could run. I can barely hike that.”

  “I’d been thinking about getting in touch with my father,” Phoebe offered. “I don’t know why. It had been five years, you know, and I kind of missed him. At least I thought I missed him. I knew I was never going to like Nikki because she purposely befriended my mother knowing that she was going to seduce my father away.

  “It’s probably lame to say, but I blamed her more than my father,” she continued, sheepish. “I mean, I blamed my father. I knew he was the one who ruined the marriage, but I considered him weak and thought Nikki was the true monster. I was very, very wrong.”

  “Had you talked to him at all since the divorce?”

  “Not really. Right after they separated, he tried to talk to me. He said it wasn’t his fault, that he wasn’t happy with Mom, and that he needed to find some happiness for himself. He said I wasn’t to blame.”

  “Well, that’s definitely true.”

  “I was really angry with him at the time. In fact, I hated him. Sure, I saw that neither of my parents were all that happy together, but I never expected them to get divorced. Very few of my friends had parents who were still together. I felt special because I did. That went away in the blink of an eye.

  “I kind of waffled for a long time,” she continued. “I was angry at my father, but I was kind of mad at my mother, too. I said horrible things to her, blamed her for him wanting to leave. It wasn’t fair or right, but I exploded a few times. I’m not proud of it.”

  “We all explode at one time or another,” Ivy noted. “I yell at people all the time when I don’t really mean it. That’s understandable. I’m sure your mother understood that you were going through something.”

  “I don’t think she did.” Phoebe adopted a far-off expression. “She only cared about herself, what she lost. She didn’t care about me at all.”

  Ivy found the statement odd. From what she could remember of Janice, the woman doted on Phoebe. Sure, Janice and Ivy weren’t close so she never got the chance to see the inner workings of the mother-daughter relationship, but she couldn’t help feeling as if she would’ve seen a hint of something if what Phoebe said was true. Of course, Phoebe was young. Perception shifts quickly at eighteen, and even twenty. Phoebe hadn’t yet fully matured. She had time.

  “Tell me about the day your mother died,” Ivy prodded as she reached for a bandage and ripped open the package. “You said you went for a run and came home to find your father ... .” She purposely left it hanging so Phoebe could fill in the gaps.

  “I heard raised voices first.”

  Ivy pictured the visions she saw the day they discovered Janice’s body. “What were the voices saying?”

  “There was a lot of yelling, finger-pointing,” Phoebe replied. “My father was upset. He said my mother ruined his reputation and made it impossible for him to get the promotion he was hoping for at work.”

  “Well, a lot of people really dislike your father for what he did to your mother. It was common knowledge around town. You can’t keep something like that a secret in a town the size of Shadow Lake.”

  “No,” Phoebe agreed. “You definitely can’t keep something like that secret. People still ask me about it to this day, even though it’s mortifying. Anyway, I was in the mudroom taking off my shoes. I could hear them screaming at each other, and I remember thinking how weird it was for Dad to be in the house. He hadn’t been in the house since the day he picked up and moved in with Nikki.”

  “Not even once?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Mom threw all his clothes and other belongings on the front lawn and Dad had to pick them up there, but he was never in the house again. I remember, not long after the separation, Nikki stopped by and asked if she could pick up a few of his things. I never considered my mother a violent person until that moment, but I thought there was a real chance she might rip Nikki’s head off her neck.”

  “I don’t know a lot about Nikki,” Ivy admitted, resting the bandage carefully on the palm of Phoebe’s hand. “Keep your hand just like that while I get the tape, okay?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “As for Nikki, I’ve only run into her a few times around town and I’ve never really believed that she’s a very good person,” Ivy continued. “I guess I could’ve let my personal feelings cloud my judgment — I always liked your mother, after all — but Nikki always seemed cold, as if she was looking for a handout and felt entitled.”

  “She’s definitely that way,” Phoebe agreed, grimacing as Ivy affixed the first piece of tape. “I was fourteen when my mother first brought her home. I remember thinking it was weird because Nikki was so much younger than her, closer to my age really, but Mom seemed to like her so I was happy for her. When things fell apart, it was easy to blame Nikki. My father played a part in it, too.”

  “Yeah.” Ivy ripped off another piece of tape. “You said you were in the mudroom when they were fighting. When did you realize things were about to take a turn for the worse?”

  “Honestly, eve
n when my mother went silent, I thought there had to be a reason for it,” Phoebe admitted. “I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I heard a strange sound and I didn’t realize what I was hearing. When I walked into the living room, my father had my mother by the neck. She was on her knees and there was very little life left in her eyes.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” she continued. “I started toward him, but he saw me coming. I was afraid when I saw the look in his eyes. Lord help me, but I was afraid. I ran instead of helping my mother. I kept telling myself that there was nothing I could do, but I’m not sure that’s true.”

  Ivy knew what the medical examiner told Jack, that Janice lived for several hours after the initial injury. Her quality of life might not have been good, but there was a good chance Janice could’ve been saved. There was no sense telling Phoebe that now, though. She was dealing with more than enough.

  “So you ran?”

  Phoebe swallowed hard and nodded. “I didn’t even pick a direction. I just ran. I could hear my father behind me, he started up his truck and followed. I ran into the woods, trying to lose him. I stuck to the woods. He followed, though. Even when I hit the woods by your house, he followed. I didn’t know there was that two-track out there until I heard his truck on it. I thought I’d gotten away.”

  Ivy’s heart gave a tremendous roll. “I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying.”

  “I hid in that shack that’s out there, even though it scared the crap out of me. That’s where I cut my hand. There was a piece of wood I didn’t see until it was too late. I’ve been out here ever since, convinced my father is looking for me.”

  “You found the nursery, though,” Ivy pointed out. “My house isn’t far away. It’s just on the other side of the trail. Why didn’t you find us? I mean ... you wrote the message on the window.”